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GoDaddy withdraws IPO

The world’s biggest domain registrar decided the time wasn’t right to go public.

Breaking news on the financial wires…GoDaddy has thrown in the towel on its IPO, at least for now. After filing its S-1 in May and exposing its finances to the world, GoDaddy will now sit on the sidelines or look for another strategic exit.

GoDaddy faced an uphill battle for its IPO despite its market dominance. Not only has the market for IPOs been muted lately, but the company also had to explain how it would start making money (the company loses money now). It’s not fair to compare the company to Vonage, which has a pitiful business plan and had to go public because it couldn’t find money elsewhere. But let’s face it, GoDaddy had a few hurdles to overcome to go public:

1. It’s fearless leader, Bob Parsons, speaks his mind a bit to much for a public company CEO. Perhaps he rubbed some institutional investors the wrong way?

2. It’s losing money.

3. It has internal control problems. Perhaps due diligence on the company uncovered some of its unsavory activities, such as typosquatting.

Or maybe they decided an acquisition was a better way to cash out. In the past few months both eNom, BulkRegister, and Moniker have been acquired.

Hopefully we’ll get more information about GoDaddy’s withdraw tomorrow.